The Smiley Smile Message Board

There was a brief bit of colorized "Good Vibrations" session footage in the first episode of the "McCartney 3, 2, 1" doc series on Hulu:

(https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/218401076_2915766918693319_1485606503842670154_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=MvKuAOv-qv8AX92UlCC&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&oh=5b3d58b26bf477aae2a819737b9d25f2&oe=60FC8C52)

(https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/218857040_2915766975359980_4162615971529692669_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=HHxqJEYXpMwAX8oAx7K&tn=7PWF7JNGeT0B3RGl&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&oh=cee516c59450ead41efcf873bf5c0a82&oe=60FCD926)

(https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/218688850_2915767048693306_2422021348888950986_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=f8uN7QndG9oAX9YI6QI&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc3-1.xx&oh=3fc9375e50cbd35081bbcb17aac02025&oe=60FDB902)

Thanks for sharing that, interesting. I wonder if those were actually anywhere near the accurate colors of the clothes they were wearing, or if those colors were just seemingly chosen as a best guess by the colorizer. I'm guessing the colors of the studio were based off of other historical color photos to be accurate.

That first close up shot of them is actually pretty damn good. If I hadn't known any better I would have thought it was a color photo. That being said, I still hate the idea of colorizing  black and white film.

Damn.  That colorization looks really good. (Though not sure if Hal's Crush soda would look so dark if it were orange but I suppose it could have been grape).

The colorization technology is light-years ahead of where it was 30 years ago... when it invariably looked pretty lame. Those were the days of SNL's Dana Carvey as Jimmy Stewart threatening to "kick the ass" of the colorizers of It's a Wonderful Life etc.

 https://youtu.be/fwGgLN9PnME (https://youtu.be/fwGgLN9PnME)

Whoever did the color tinting did a terrific job. That looks accurate and full of life too.

Watching the original clips in B&W I never noticed Mike kneeling on a chair while tracking that vocal. I saw Al's box, but not Mike's chair. I wonder if he did that regularly for breath support and other vocal technique considerations, or if it was for certain vocals? Kneeling like that does put one into the "proper" upright position for breath support while singing.

Very cool images, thank you for posting this!

Now can we please get the full 45+ minutes of that footage before it becomes irrelevant?

How could it ever become irrelevant?

How about at least while the last three surviving original members shown in the film are alive? And while the more hardcore fan base who has been supporting the band and these archival efforts for decades is still alive?

It's already happening where Elvis is becoming less relevant as the years go by, and he's not the iconic figure he was even 15 years ago because the generations who knew him as an icon are dying off and the new generations overall don't seem to care as much, minus a very niche number of diehards. And Elvis' heyday was roughly a decade or less removed from "Good Vibrations".

45+ minutes of 1966 Good Vibrations session footage - Let the fans see it already.  

Your right guitarfool. And next year has to be the year we see it I’d have to assume? If not next year, I can’t see when. Honestly in retrospect it is kinda crazy that there wasn’t any kind of true, big time documentary film made for The Beach Boys 50th anniversary. That was probably when it really shoulda been unveiled.

That is really well colourized, but oof -- Hal's drums were (and remain) very famously blue...

So is it a myth/fabrication that it is possible to apply the correct colour based on the shade of grey in the original film?

very cool that Brian and Pet Sounds were mentioned within the first 15 mins of this series. the colorized footage is glorious.

Paul also mentions the Kinks in episode 3 which I've never heard him do before. nice to see

I'm sure AI can get in the ballpark.

That's interesting, I didn't even notice at first they had Hal's drum shells tinted red! I'm guessing this session in mid '66 was before Hal started using multiple kits so he could go from studio to studio with less setup time? Obviously his blue kit was the iconic one.

What's your take on Mike kneeling on that chair tracking his vocal? I'm guessing it's something with breath control but I don't think I've seen another shot of him tracking like this while kneeling.

No idea!  I can't think of any other pics of him singing like this.  Maybe he just couldn't get comfy that day.

Another new thing that I hadn't noticed before is the clavinet set up at CBS.

As for the quality vs. accuracy of the colorization, I think what might be at play is this: Assuming MPL did the colorization, we can then deduce a few things. One is that MPL has the money to spend on a quality colorization. Another is that it seems the main purpose in colorizing some footage and photos in this new Rick Rubin miniseries is to contrast it against the B&W footage of Rubin and McCartney at the mixing board. And finally, while whomever did the colorization did a very good job (certainly much better than the AI-colorized stuff on YouTube), they probably weren't too concerned with tiny details give they were colorizing like 10 or 20 seconds of footage playing in the background simply to reinforce that McCartney was in fact talking about the Beach Boys.

Ironically, they used "Good Vibrations" footage and audio for this little bit despite McCartney having indicated in the past that GV was not one of his all-time favorites and not one of his favorite BB tracks, and that while it's impossible for anybody to ignore GV, McCartney is usually talking about "Pet Sounds" material (and arguably select earlier works) when discussing Brian/BB influences.

What would have been cool would be to see Rubin play McCartney some "Ram" stuff and then play some "Sunflower" stuff to prod McCartney to talk about that less-discussed influence on his early solo career.

I would say play Macca some tracks from Smiley Smile next to Ram and McCartney 1 tracks as well! I hear more of a subliminal and at times obvious Smiley Smile influence on those home-brew sounding albums, even though they were not all home-brewed (it's the overall vibe). Not saying Smiley was the only loose-feel home-brew influence, because that back-to-basics home recording spirit seemed to be in the air later in '67 and '68 in multiple circles (Village Green, Big Pink, even the White Album, etc.)  But I have to say Smiley Smile - minus the singles on the album - could be one of the earlier examples of an artist known for bigger studio productions literally stripping everything down to the basics and leaving in all kinds of audio verite sound like you were in the room with them as they were recording. Well, then there's Party! too a few years earlier... ;D

The photos disappeared! Could you repost them? Thanks!

I think Facebook just renames the links after x number of days, so I re-linked them and hopefully they work again.